Kandukondian Kandukondian: How Tamil Cinema Gave Jane Austen A Soulful New Home

How do you adapt a novel that has shaped generations of readers and still make it feel fresh? Kandukondain Kandukondain (கண்டுகொண்டேன் கண்டுகொண்டேன்), answers that question with grace, showing that great literature can find new life in unexpected places.

Directed by Rajiv Menon, Kandukondain Kandukondain is a Tamil adaptation of Jane Austen’s first novel ‘Sense and Sensibility’ originally published in 1811.

When Austen wrote Sense and Sensibility, she explored how love and practicality collide in a world where women have little agency. Two centuries later, Sowmya (Tabu) and Meenakshi (Aishwarya Rai) face the same struggles—not in 19th-century England, but in Tamil Nadu.

Tabu’s Sowmya, much like Elinor Dashwood, is measured and composed, bearing the weight of responsibility while being quietly dismissed as “unlucky” in love. Aishwarya Rai’s Meenakshi, the film’s Marianne, is free-spirited and idealistic, convinced that love must be grand and poetic—only to discover that charm and dependability are not the same.

Cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran beautifully mirrors the film’s visual poetry, where Tamil Nadu itself becomes a silent observer of their struggles. The misty hills of Ooty, the bustling city streets, the sun-drenched rural landscapes—all serve as reflections of the characters’ emotional states.

But if cinematography is the soul, A.R. Rahman’s music is the heartbeat. His soundtrack does what the best film scores do: it becomes inseparable from the story itself.
“Enna Solla Pogirai” feels like longing distilled into melody. “Kannamoochi Yenada” turns flirtation into a rhythmic dance. “Suttum Vizhi Sudare” captures the ache of desire in every note.

The reason so many literary adaptations fail is that they either stick too rigidly to the text or stray so far that they lose the essence of the original.

Kandukondain Kandukondain takes Austen’s story and makes it undeniably its own, proving that great literature is not just remembered, but rediscovered, again and again, in new voices, new cultures, and new languages.